Deflection

Today I played bridge engineer. I know it is kind of my passion. But to start with, my trailer is in Baton Rouge being serviced. I feel that these RV service centers must have a racket going on. I took the trailer in with a few concerns, but then they have to tell me that they have to keep it a few days so that they can verify the trailer. That means that I use my Hilton points for hotel rooms. I have enough points, but it does cost more for the meals. What an inconvenience.

I talked to the person that was checking me in, and I asked what there was to do around Baton Rouge, but I did not get a good answer. But, in passing, he mentioned that I could take day trips to New Orleans. Since I might get my trailer back on Friday, I decided to spend a couple of days in the French Quarter.

On my way to New Orleans, I decided to travel over the Lake Pontchatrain Bridge, since I remembered reading about this bridge being damaged during Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita in 2005. Just as I got onto the bridge, I had to pay a $6 toll. And, then, all there was in front of me was the bridge and water. It was like boating across the lake with a bridge. There was no way that I could see the other side of the lake. At about sixteen miles from the north shore, I stated to see tall buildings. Eventually I saw the tall buildings of New Orleans in the 11:00 position.

It was a good thing that I did not pull my trailer over the bridge. As I have noticed with all of the bridges down here, the are all simple spans with open joints over the piers. Without brine coming through the joints, they do not have to worry about concrete damage, but they made a big mistake when they poured the deck on the prestressed beams. After prestressed beams come out of the form, they immediately haunch in the middle (they come up in the middle with the tension coming off of the prestressing strands). They also continue to creep up until the concrete deck is poured on the deck. Regrading the original bridge, they poured the deck uniformly over the deck, without adjusting the ends of the slabs for the amount that the beams had hunched before pouring the deck. So, when driving over the deck with a truck with a tight suspension, they is rather small dip driving over the piers and it is felt in the trucks. It is uncomfortable to drive. With the equalizing trailer hitch, it would flex over each pier giving the driver and passengers an uncomfortable ride. There are emergency turn arounds on the bridge (a bridge between the two bridges), and, if I would have had my trailer, I would have turned around at the first turn around.

As I state above, this bridge was damaged during the 2005 hurricanes. As I read about this bridge in 2005, it was determined that the waves were so high that they lifted the slabs off of the piers. When I got on the bridge, the slabs were so high that it seemed impossible to for the waves to get high enough to touch the bottom of the slab. But, after I got off of the bridge, I drove off to the right and went up on the levee and looked back at the bridge and the effects of the hurricanes made sense. The slab comes down close to the water on the north end, so the water could reach the slabs, but it is still really high. Also, when they replaced the piers and the slab, they took elevation shots of the tops of the prestressed beams and made the deck smooth to drive over,

Tomorrow, it is to observe the French Quarter and then on Thursday it is to visit the WW II museum.

Roger